Hunter Biden’s Self-Serving Self-Help Comeback

Hunter Biden is back. As Jay Stahl of Yahoo News explains:

Hunter Biden was once considered the free-wheeling “Black sheep” of his famous first family: the lost laptop-owning, crack cocaine-using, womanizing recipient of a preemptive presidential pardon.

And Biden seemingly considered all of that when publishing a series of X-rated social media posts on X (formerly Twitter) that poke fun at his past scandals. In doing so, the Beautiful Things memoirist is now a public-facing advocate for the arts and sobriety after battling drug and alcohol addiction.

Unfortunately, there’s more to Hunter’s comeback than the fawning press would have you believe, and Hunter’s tweets don’t only “poke fun at his past sandals.” Instead, they are a farrago of Oprah therapyspeak, Twelve Steps bromides, DNC talking points, deflection, and pseudo-medical nonsense. And their goal is apparent: to launder deeply shameful behavior with the cleansing waters of narcissistic recovery platitudes.

This Hunter, the man who bedded his dead brother’s wife, offers the following: 

Addiction is never an excuse, but it can be an explanation. Seeking genuine forgiveness from those we have harmed is one of the hardest things to do in recovery. It’s one of the hardest things for any of us to do in life. I’ve found that, before you begin that journey, you have to first forgive yourself. I would love to hear about your experience, strength and hope today.